Mitigating Fire Risks in a Restaurant Kitchen

February 17, 2017

Follow these tips to reduce the risk of fires in your commercial kitchen.

When you call a restaurant a hot spot, you’re typically referring to the delicious food, hard-to-get reservations, and jalapeno margaritas, not all of the potentially dangerous hot-spots in the kitchen. Restaurant kitchens are full of every ingredient to make a devastating fire—open flames, electrical connections, oil, cleaning chemicals, paper products, ovens, and heating equipment. Here are some of the best steps that you can take to mitigate fire risk in your restaurant kitchen.

Prevention First

By doing a little work to prevent a fire, you can help to prevent the massive amount of work you’ll need to do if there is a fire.

Use an automatic fire-suppression system in the kitchen. Over half of the restaurant fires every year originate from cooking equipment, so an automatic fire suppression system installed above or nearby can help to stop the spread. Whenever this type of fire suppression system activates, it will shut off the fuel and electric supplies to all of the cooking equipment in the area and dispense chemicals to suppress flames.

Don’t put off regular maintenance on electrical equipment. Many restaurant owners intend to schedule maintenance or repairs and forget, but the frayed wires you meant to repair a month ago will start a fire regardless of your intentions.

Inspect your exhaust system at least quarterly for any grease buildup. Even if everything else in your kitchen is in good condition, excess grease can ignite and engulf your restaurant kitchen.

Train Your Staff

Putting the right plan in place is critical, but if your staff isn’t properly trained it won’t matter. Always train your staff to:

Ensure that cigarettes and matches are completely out before disposing of them

Store flammable oils and liquids correctly

Use cleaning chemicals properly

Clean up before, during, and after a shift

Fire Protection Services from Biles Fire Protection

Biles Fire Protection can help with all of your residential or commercial fire safety needs. We have the equipment and expertise to install wet sprinkler systems or dry sprinkler systems at affordable prices. We are well known for our top-notch customer service, quick response times, and reliable support and maintenance. To get a quote for your sprinkler system, fill out our online request form. For more information and to chat about how we can help meet your fire safety needs, visit us online or give us a call at (443) 701-8330. To get more fire safety tips and information, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.

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